My fiancee was awesome and gave me my birthday present early - got the Anova precision cooker with Bluetooth and WiFi


I've been playing with it a bit - the steak was good (need to play with that a bit to dial it in) and the baked apple was great!


For those of you who use sous vide as a cooking method - care to share your favorite recipes?

I've done steaks and lamb chops. I used recipes from the Anova app. Great results every time so far. I just bought a mini-cooler and drilled a hole in the lid for a dedicated cooking vessel.

Thick cut pork chops! 140 degrees for one hour+. Then sear in a butter and canola oil 50/50 mix for about 45 seconds. Amazing.

Get the Anova app for your device Has a built-in (connected) timer too. Lots of great recipes. Their website is good too.

Chicken was not great. Rubbery. I must have done something wrong.

Thick filet mignon is perfect to this way, like the chops. Never have to worry about undercooking inside while outside is overdone. Just a little sear when finished.

I highly recommend doing something like this:

https://i.redd.it/5nplkd1vtrbx.jpg

You don't have to worry about evaporation, water heats up faster and stays hot longer, even if power goes out. Check out reddit.com/r/sousvide and http://www.seriouseats.com/tags/sous%20vide . J Kenji Lopez is a great read for this stuff.


Of course steak and beef roasts are things and you should try it first thing, but some of my favorites are:
1) Chicken Breast at 150 degrees (1-4 hours). Season how you want, i like a thin slice of lemon in the bag. If it's skinless, you can just eat out of the bag. This is a great thing for the week - bag your chicken, put ice water in your cooking vessel (another reason I like a cooler) so that it stays refrigerated for the day. At around lunch time, start the Anova from work. it'll be done and hot when you get home, just worry about sides.

2) Pork Loin at 140 (2-4 hours). Same weekday trick, but you might want to sear it when you get home. Never have you had medium (or medium rare) pork before, and its a game changer.

3) Chicken thighs or legs at 160 or 160 for 4 hours - fall off the bone tender, incredably juicy. Lately we've been adding some peri peri sauce to the bag, and skip the skin so we dont' have to sear it.

4) A cheap choice chuck roast for 18 hours at 130 degrees. I prefer presearing roasts, Take it out, let it cool a bit, post-sear if you have the time, and serve. This wowed extended family at a reunion recently. An aunt refused to believe it was just chuck.

5) a turkey breast. Amazing.

6) I'm not a BBQ / smoking expert, so this might not trick everyone, but works for me: rub pork ribs and cook 'em for 36 hours at 140 degrees. I cut them up into cuts of 4 ribs so they fit in my bags. When they're done, take out, dry , and either smoke for a crust, or baste with a sauce and put in the oven at 300 for 20 minutes. So damn easy, we do this monthly.


Tricks:
1) For a good sear without cooking too deep:
- When you unbag whatever it is, dry it off as much as you can. Less energy goes to evaporating liquid, which means more heat goes to the surface
- Let it cool for 10-15 minutes before searing. This will let the surface heat up to brown, but heat won't penetrate too deep and start cooking the thing through.
- I love my Searzall, but look up the "chimney" method for searing. Indoor searing can be a smokey affair.


2 You can always reheat something by putting it in a bag, and putting t back in water at temperature. Did that last week when we had company stop by right as i was serving our steaks. Put them back in the bag, put them in my 129 degree water, and 30 minutes later when people left, took them out and they were hot, but not overcooked.

I could go on, but its late

I bought this:

https://www.amazon.com/Perfect...=sous+vide+container

You'll see the reflective bottom - I bought the wraps for the side along with another piece for the top. I only needed to add a quart or so of water each day while in use.

The reflective portion is at:

https://www.amazon.com/Perfect...VBE3PWXPW0R7WHQH1136

I also got the rack for helping to hold some items.

https://www.amazon.com/Sous-Vi...VBE3PWXPW0R7WHQH1136

If I have several bags to cook, I'll still hang them from the sides and use the lid to hold them in place. Small items can go into the rack.

I used it to cook corned beef earlier this year to take into work. Very moist meat with a lot of flavor.

Chuck Roast.

Season heavily (garlic, onion, salt, pepper, etc.).

Sous Vide for 24 - 48 hours at 132F.

Remove from bag, pat dry and very, very lightly coat with canola oil cooking spray.

Heat up your grill to high heat (500+) and sear on each side for 3-5 minutes (or longer if you want more crust).

Rest for 15 minutes.

Eat like a king for $1.99 a pound or better.

Lately I've been buying cowboy ribeyes (2" thick) at Sam's. These are choice, not prime, so not expensive. I cut off the bone sticking out, smear them with rub of choice, and sous vide at 130 degrees for 24 hours.

Remove from bag, pat dry and very, very lightly coat with canola oil cooking spray.

Then just need to sear on grill at high heat for a couple of minutes per side. No need to rest.

Absolutely perfect tender medium rare super thick ribeye off the grill. An impossibility, it's flabbergasting to guests.

We don't cotton to that french food around Jerkwater.

Thanks for the replies - I've got some experimenting to do - In addition to meat, I'm going to try making cheesecake and might even try my hand at yogurt...

Heading out to purchase an extra cooler that I can cut a hole in now

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
We don't cotton to that french food around Jerkwater.

LOL

I’ve done NY steaks a few times after applying a generous rub and sealing. I cook a couple of 1LB steaks for 3.5 hours at 140°, finish in a cast iron pan and eat.

Here’s a primer:

http://www.seriouseats.com/201...sous-vide-steak.html

Steaks 129@1 hour
Chicken 146@30 minutes

Both seared in cast iron with a little butter/fresh herbs, delish!

It does wonders for plain ole boring chicken boobs.